Emma Roberts said she’s feeling “really sad” and “shocked” after learning about what some of her former Nickelodeon co-stars went through following the bombshell documentary, Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV.
In a recent wide-ranging interview with Variety, Roberts spoke about her most recent project, Space Cadet, being related to Julia Roberts, and her reaction to the documentary that exposed alleged on-set abuse and sexual misconduct. Roberts was the star of Nickelodeon’s Unfabulous from 2004 to 2007 and said she was unaware of what was happening to other actors.
“I watched [Quiet on Set], and I was completely horrified and shocked because that was not my experience,” Roberts said. “It made me really, really, really sad that that was happening to people that I literally saw often and had no idea.”
Roberts went on to explain that at the time, her show Unfabulous had a woman showrunner named Sue Rose — which she realized now “was not very common” then. “But that was my intro into working on a TV show.”
Quiet on Set was released in March 2024 and alleged that Dan Schneider, a powerful producer and showrunner behind some of Nickelodeon’s most popular shows, allegedly fostered an abusive environment and was described as being “volatile” and having inappropriate relationships with some of the actors on set. One of the biggest bombshells to come from the series was Drake Bell publicly speaking out about being repeatedly sexually abused by Nickelodeon acting coach Brian Peck. Peck pleaded no contest to two charges of sexual abuse and was sentenced to 16 months in prison and ordered to register as a sex offender.
The documentary shed light on the limited access parents had while their kids were working on set, but Roberts said her mom was with her “24/7.”
“I would be like, ‘You don’t have to be here all the time,’ she was like, ‘I do actually. I’m not letting you out of my sight. You’re not going to a fitting by yourself when you’re 13 years old.’”
Emma Roberts isn’t the only former star who is having a difficult time with the documentary’s allegations — Ariana Grande recently opened up about “reprocessing” her time as a child star on the network in an interview on Podcrushed. Grande seemed to get emotional discussing the “devastating” allegations and how the environment needs to “be made a lot safer” for kids.
Roberts echoed her sentiment: “It makes me really sad, and I just feel like children need to be protected on sets, as do adults, and I feel like we’re working towards a better work environment in that sense. But yeah, that documentary really kept me up at night.”
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